Gene I. Maeroff, BSJ ’61

Senior fellow, Hechinger Institute
on Education and the Media of the Teachers College of Columbia University

Gene Maeroff is a nationally known writer and researcher on education at all levels. Since 2003, he has served as the senior fellow at the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media of the Teachers College of Columbia University, an organization of which he was the founding director in 1996. The Hechinger Institute, named in memory of former education editor of The New York Times and Teachers College trustee Fred M. Hechinger, is dedicated to fair, accurate and insightful reporting about education by print and broadcast journalists.

From 1986 until 1996, Maeroff was the senior fellow of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Princeton, N.J., where he wrote, edited and researched reports on all aspects of education including works on Scholarship Assessed, Scholarship Reconsidered, An Imperiled Generation, Ready to Learn, School Choice, Campus Life, and College: The Undergraduate Experience. Maeroff was the national education correspondent for The New York Times, where he worked from 1971 until 1986. From 1965 until 1971, Maeroff was with The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, where he became associate editor, and he served as the religion editor for The Akron Beacon Journal from 1964 to 1965.

Maeroff has written, co-written, and edited 13 books. His latest book, which will be published in September by Palgrave Macmillan, is called Building Blocks: Making Children Successful in the Early Years of School. He has published four monographs, and his work has appeared in numerous magazines and journals.

Maeroff has earned awards from the Education Writers Association, the International Reading Association, the American Association of University Professors and the Associated Press Society. In 1974, he received the Ohio University Alumni Association’s Medal of Merit.      

After earning a Bachelor of Science in Journalism degree from Ohio University in 1961 and a Master of Science degree from Boston University in 1962, Maeroff received an honorary Doctor of Pedagogy degree from Rhode Island College and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Adrian College.

Maeroff, a Cleveland native, now resides in New Jersey with his partner Joyce Rosenthal. He is the father of three children—Janine, Adam and Rachel—and six grandchildren. Rachel is an Ohio University alumna from 1990.